Stillwater Woman Receives 18 1/2-Year Prison Sentence

BALLSTON SPA — Joey Paul was accused of fatally shooting her boyfriend in the face at point-blank range a year and a half ago with an AK-47. On Tuesday afternoon, Paul was sentenced to 18 ½ years in prison and five years of post-release supervision for the murder of the late Matthew Furlani. Furlani, 28, was unarmed when he was killed with the weapon he owned while staying at his Church Street apartment in Schuylerville, according to his mother, Christina Harwood–Downey. Before Paul’s sentencing, Harwood–Downey’s impact statement was interrupted midway through by Paul, who yelled obscenities and insults at the victim’s mother and others in the courtroom. Before the murder, Paul, 30, of Stillwater, did not have a felony on her record. She did however have multiple misdemeanor theft offenses on her record and at one point allegedly hit her sleeping boyfriend over the head with a lamp and threatened to kill him. Paul was offered a plea deal of first-degree manslaughter, according to Saratoga District Attorney James A. Murphy III, because of a severe mental health conviction. Police said that Paul walked out of the Schuylerville apartment door with her hands raised, stating “The gun was not supposed to go off,” on the morning of the murder on July 1, 2012. A year and four months after saying the shooting was an accident, Paul admitted to the murder in November. Paul will serve her sentence at Bedford Hills Correctional, a women’s prison in Westchester County.